Finkelberg - On The Unity Of Orphic And Milesian Thought.pdf

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On the Unity of Orphic and Milesian Thought Author(s): Aryeh Finkelberg Source: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Oct., 1986), pp. 321-335 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1509743 Accessed: 03/10/2008 20:13 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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HTR 79:4 (1986) 321-35

ON THE UNITY OF ORPHICAND MILESIANTHOUGHT

Aryeh Finkelberg Hebrew University of Jerusalem For Shlomo Pines

In the first volume of A Historyof GreekPhilosophyW. K. C. Guthrie points out that "the promulgatorsof teletaiin the name of Orpheus were concerned in the religious sphere with the same problem of the relation between the One and the Many which in a different form was the problem of the Milesian philosophers."' Elsewhere Guthrie provides a more detailed explanation of the similarities and differences between the Orphicand the Milesian treatmentof the One-Manyproblem: Sixth-century religious and philosophical thought ... was dominated by one central problem, the problem of the One and the Many. This appeared in two forms, one referring to the macrocosm, the other to the microcosm. In its first form it was the problem of the Milesian naturalphilosophers,who asked: "What is the relation between the manifold variety of the world in which we live and the one primarysubstance out of which, as we are convinced, it must in the first place have arisen?" In its second form it was the problemof the religious minds of the age. Their question was: "What is the relation of each individual man to the divine, to

1 W. K. C. Guthrie, A Historyof GreekPhilosophy(6 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge CulteundMythenin UniversityPress, 1962-81) 1. 132. Cf. Otto Gruppe, Die griechischen zu den orientalischen ihrenBeziehungen Religionen(Leipzig:Teubner, 1887) 1. 643-48.

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HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW which we feel we are akin, and how can we best realize and actualize the potentialunity which underlies the two?"2

This typological observation requires, in my opinion, some qualification:the sharp distinction Guthrie draws here between the Orphicand the Milesian formulationsof the problemis untenable.3 That the Orphics were concerned with the "macrocosmicform" of the One-Many problem is clear from the Orphic verses which are 4 quoted in the Derveni papyrusand seem to date ca. 500 BCE: [So Zeus swallowedthe body of the god,] of the Firstbornking, the revered one. And with him all the immortalsbecame one, the blessed gods and goddesses and rivers and lovely springsand everythingelse that then existed: he became the only one.5

This is precisely what is said in the more detailed version of this story in the OrphicRhapsodies,where, after the swallowing,another creation follows: Zeus regeneratesthe world out of himself accordingto his own design. The text of the Derveni papyrus, though corrupt, leaves no doubt that here too, Zeus regeneratesthe world.6 But what about the "microcosmic form" of the One-Many problem in the Milesians? I share Guthrie's view that G. S. Kirk's argument againstthe existence of the analogybetween the microcosm and macro-

2 W. K. C. Guthrie, TheGreeksand TheirGods(Boston:Beacon, 1955) 316. Following the discoveryof the Derveni papyrusfew would deny that the Orphicteachingsknown to us from later sources originate in the 6th century BCE. See R. Merkelbach, "Der Orphische Papyrus von Derveni," Zeitschriftfur Papyrologieund Epigraphik1 (1967) 21-22; M. L. West, TheOrphicPoems(Oxford:Clarendon, 1984) 110. As WalterBurkert ("Orpheus und die Vorsokratiker:Bemerkungen zum Derveni-Papyrusund zur pythagoreischenZahlenlehre,"AntikeundAbendland14 [1968] 101) put it, "Immerhinist durchden Fund wieder bewiesen, dass ein Minimalismusnotwendigerweisefalsch ist." 3 Guthrie himself is not unawareof the existence of the "macrocosmicform" of the One-Manyproblemin the Orphics,for he points out that the swallowingof Phanes and his whole creation by Zeus is "a mythologicalcounterpartto the speculationsof the naturalphilosophersabout the productionof the manifold world out of unity" (Greeks and TheirGods,319). Nor is he unawareof the "microcosmicform" of the problemin the Presocratics,see idem, "The PresocraticWorld-Picture,"HTR45 (1952) esp. 91-94. 4 West, OrphicPoems,108; cf. Merkelbach,"Derveni," 21. 5 Col. xii, West's translation. In West the column numberingis higher by one than in other publications.On the readingof ai8oZovin xii.1 see idem, OrphicPoems,85. 6 Cols. xvii-xix. Otto Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta(Berlin: Weidmann, 1922) frg. 167. Cf. Burkert,"Orpheus,"101-2; West, OrphicPoems,90-93.

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cosm in Anaximenes7is untenable. The very fact that Anaximenes makesair both the divineprincipleof the universeand humanbeing's soul is sufficientreason to affirma consciousanalogybetween the cosmicdivinityand man'ssoul.8I discussbelowmoresubtleinstances for the momentlet me simply of this analogyin the earlyPresocratics; state that, at the very least, the "microcosmicform"of the One-Many problemwasnot aliento the Milesianthinkers. This beingthe case, it is clearat the outsetthatin both the Orphics and the Milesiansthe One-Manyproblemappearsin two forms. A furtherqualificationof Guthrie'sobservationwhich I considerwarrantedconcernshis formulationof the problem. Guthrie'swording seems unnecessarilyloose and abstract,for examinationof the two forms of the One-Manyproblemin both the Orphicand the Milesian contextswill be seen to allowfor a farmorespecificdefinition. The firstquestionis whether,in the Milesiandoctrines,the "macrocosmicform"of the One-Manyproblemwastreatedonlydiachronically (the Manyarisesout of the One and is eventuallyreabsorbedinto it)9 7 G. S. Kirk, Heraclitus:The CosmicFragments(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1954) 312. 8 Guthrie, GreekPhilosophy,1. 131-32; idem, "Presocratic,"91. 9 Doxographic sources dependent on Theophrastus attribute the doctrine of the periodicdestructionof the world into apX1 to all the early Presocraticthinkers: Phys. Opin.,frg. 2, apudSimpliciusPhys. 24.13 (12 A 9. This and all further unidentifiededition referencesare to Diels-Kranz.);cf. Ps.-Plut. Strom.2 (12 A 10) and HippolytusRef. 1.6.1 (12 A 11); Phys. Opin.,frg. 1, apudSimpliciusPhys.23.33 (18, 7); cf. Diogenes 9.9 (22 A 1). This attributionseems to find supportin those passagesin Aristotle in which he touches on the materialmonism of the Presocratics:Phys. 3.5, 204b 33-205a 7; Met. 1.3, 983b 6-11; 3.4, 1000lb 25-26; 11.10, 1066b 37-1067a 8; EN 10.3, 1173b 5-6; cf. HermannDiels, DoxographiGraeci(1889; 4th ed.; Berlin:de Gruyter, 1965) 179. In recent decades, the rejectionof the doxographyof the periodicdestructionof the world as unsound has become common, and the ease with which scholarsrejectthis doxographyindicatesthat in their eyes the idea of cosmogonicalcycles is devoid of any sense or functional connection with the rest of the doctrine(s). Thus, e.g., Guthrie while in Milesianthought, points out acceptingthe periodicreabsorptionof the world into &apXr that in Anaximanderthis doctrine "did not occupythe centralplace" (GreekPhilosophy1. 389). However, since the formationof the world out of apXq'and the world's eventual reabsorptioninto apXn'are two phases of the same process, it seems to me at least strange to affirm the importanceof the first phase while deprecatingthat of the second phase. Denying the importanceof the doctrine is only a step away from dismissing the very existence of such an "irrelevantand bizarrehypothesis" (G. S. Kirk, "Some Problems in Anaximander,"ClassicalQuarterly n.s. 5 [1955] 29). But if we agree that "there is nothing whateverin 'the appearanceof nature' to suggest successive worlds" (idem, in G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, ThePresocraticPhilosophers:A CriticalHistorywitha Selection of Texts[Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1957] 122); we must also acknowledge that there is nothing in 'the appearanceof nature' to suggest the world's formation,

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or also synchronically (the One underlies the Many during its existence). That Anaximenes treated the problem synchronically as well as diachronicallydoes not require special demonstration. The reports of Simplicius and Hippolytusl?make it quite clear that Anaximenes had, as Kirk puts it, "thought of a way in which air could become other components of the world, like sea or earth, withoutlosing its own nature.""This means that the single principleout of which the manifold pluralityhas arisen is at the same time the single principle which underlies this pluralityand to which it is reducible. Accordingto Aristotle this applies to Thales as well, and I am not inclined to disbelieve him on this point.12It follows that the opposition between the single &pX)4and the manifold world is not so much opposition between the One and the Many as it is the opposition between two states of the One-the states of homogeneity and heterogeneity. The cosmogony is the rise of the Many withinthe One which, though allowing inner differentiation,does not cease to be the One. This is precisely what is said in Diogenes' report that, according to Anaximander, "the parts change, but the whole is unchangeable."'3The Milesian doctrines thus describe the manifold world as arising out of a single principle and in some way continuing as such despite its apparentplurality. What is the motivationfor such a view? The principle out of which the manifold world arises is divine.14 Since the One is the Divine One, that is, the single god, reduction of the Many to the One amounts to assertingthat the world as a whole is a deity. This is, in my opinion, the point of the synchronic treatment of the "macrocosmic form" of the One-Many problem in the Milesians, and I do not know a more appropriatedefinition for such a view specifically,its formationout of one materialprinciple,either. is not Below, I hope to show that the periodicalreabsorptionof the world into a&PXj as "irrelevantand bizarre"an idea as Kirk thinks, but was just as importantas that of the formationof the world. 0 SimpliciusPhys.24.26 (13 A 5); Hippolytus Ref. 1.7.3 (13 A 7). 11 Kirk and Raven, PresocraticPhilosophers,145; emphasis added. For the opposite view see JoachimKlowski, "Ist der Aer des Anaximenes als eine Substanzkonzipiert?" Hermes100 (1972) 131-42. 12Met. 1.3, 983b 6, 17 (11 A 12). Cf. Erich Frank, "The Religious Originof Greek Philosophy," in his Knowledge, Will and Belief: CollectedEssays (Zurich/Stuttgart: Artemis, 1955) 75-76. For the opposite view see JaapMansfeld, "Aristotle and Others 37 (1985) 109- 29. on Thales, Or the Beginningof NaturalPhilosophy,"Mnemosyne 13Diogenes 2.1 (12 A 1). 14See Werner Jaeger's excellent discussion of the subject in his The Theologyof the (Oxford:Clarendon,1947) 18-37. EarlyGreekPhilosophers

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than pantheism, more specifically, cosmogonical pantheism, the implications of which I shall discuss below. But first I wish to examine the "macrocosmicform" of the One-Manyproblemin the Orphics. The diachronic treatment of the One-Many problem is reflected in the Orphicmyth of Zeus' swallowingand recreationof the universe, an act wherein all things are unified into Zeus and then become many again. But the myth also reveals the synchronical treatment of the problem:in absorbingthe universe Zeus becomes identicalwith it, as is stressed in the hymn-like verses which follow the swallowingepisode in the Derveni papyrus(col. xiii-xv): Zeus was born first, Zeus last, god of the brightlightning, Zeus is the head, Zeus is the middle, from Zeus all things are made,15 Zeus is the king, Zeus is the ruler of all, god of the bright lightning.16

The pantheistic characterof this conception of Zeus is obvious.17My conclusion is that the Milesians and Orphicsshared a pantheisitic idea and combined it with a "historical view" of the universe: pantheism was cosmogonicalin the Milesians and theogonicalin the Orphics. Now, to the "microcosmic form" of the One-Many problem. According to the Orphic Rhapsodies,the soul is immortal and undergoes a series of incarnations. A soul upon leaving an animal body floats with the wind and enters another body, but upon leaving a human body is judged beneath the earth and is rewardedby being sent to the meadow beside Acheron and the misty lake or punished by being sent to Tartarusand the plain of Cocytus. After three hundred years have passed, the soul is reincarnated. Its final end is its release from the cycle of reincarnations,which is achieved through purificationrites assisted by Dionysos and Kore.18The parallelsbetween the Rhapsodies 15 Cf. Plato Leg. 4.715e (1 B 6): "God who, as the old saying has it, holds beginning, end and middle of all that exists." 16These verses appear as the first, second, and seventh lines of the Orphic hymn quoted in the pseudo-AristotelianDe mundo(Kern, frg. 21a) and are also found in the OrphicRhapsodies(Kern, frg. 168). It is possible that the fifth verse of the hymn ("Zeus is the breath of all, Zeus is the onset of untiring fire") is referred to in the Derveni papyruscommentary (col. xv). See Merkelbach,"Derveni," 24; Burkert, "Orpheus," 97; Pierre Boyanc6, "Remarquessur le papyrusde Derveni," Revuedes EtudesGrecques 87 (1974) 97-98. West (OrphicPoems,90 n. 36) dismisses this possibility. 17 Cf. Merkelbach,"Derveni," 22; and Boyanc6,"Remarques,"95. 18Kern, frgs. 156, 222-24, 228-38. Cf. Aristotle De anima 1.5, 410b 29; Plato Rep. 363c-d.

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and the Orphicpoem quoted in the Derveni papyrusmake it very plausible that, if not all, at least the core of the Rhapsodic conception of soul belongs to the earliest Orphiclore. This conclusion is stronglycorroboratedby the fact that in the 5th and 6th centuries BCEkindredconceptions were currentin Greece.19 The soul's incarnation,that is, its entering into a mortal body which is entirely alien to it, must dim the soul's divine nature, while its eventual release from bodily existence restores its true nature. This pattern, the soul's sinking and subsequent ascent, has its archetype in the Orphic Dionysos myth. According to this Dionysos was devoured by the earth-born Titans and recreated anew by Zeus; the Titans were blasted by Zeus' thunderbolt and from the ashes arose the race of human beings who therefore consist of both earthly Titanic and heavenly Dionysiac elements.20The myth not only provides an anthropogony, but also expresses the eschatologicalidea of salvation by purifying the soul of the evil, earthly, "Titanic" element mingled with it.21 The soul's story is thus a part of the story of Dionysos. Its origin lies in Dionysos' suffering and it shares the god's experience. Like him, it "dies" mingling with a heterogeneous element which entombs or imprisonsit,22and like him, it eventually rises to life.

19Cf. PindarOlymp.2, composed in 476 BC, in which we find a conceptionof soul very similar to that of the Rhapsodies.See also Pindar's frgs. 124, 130, and 133. Another parallelis Empedocles'Katharmoi.Pythagorasof Samos, who flourishedca 530 BCE,was notorious for promulgatingthe doctrineof metempsychosisand after-lifejudgment. But even Pythagoraswas not the first to introducethis conception,as some scholarscontend. in Greece: See, esp., Herbert Strainge Long, A Studyof the Doctrineof Metempsychosis From Pythagorasto Plato (Princeton:n.p., 1948) 28; and recently Charles H. Kahn, "PythagoreanPhilosophybefore Plato," in AlexanderMourelatos,ed., ThePre-Socratics: A Collectionof CriticalEssays (GardenCity, NY: Anchor, 1974) 166-67. A generation or two earlier the transmigrationdoctrine is reportedto be alreadytaught by Pherecydes of Syros; this must be the same doctrine, for metempsychosisis pointless if the ethical consequencesit involves are not developed. 20Kern, frgs. 35, 39, 140, 210, 210b, 214, 220, 224; OlympiodorusIn Phaed. 1.3.5; cf. Plato Legg. 710c. On the antiquityof the myth see MartinP. Nilsson, "Early Orphism and Kindred Religious Movements," HTR 28 (1935) 202; K. Ziegler, "Orphische Dichtung," RE 18, col. 1365; W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheusand GreekReligion:A Studyof the OrphicMovement(2d ed.; London: Methuen, 1952) 107-30; Burkert, "Orpheus," 101; cf. E. R. Dodds, The Greeksand the Irrational(Berkeley:University of California Press, 1951) 155-56. 21 Cf. Nilsson, "EarlyOrphism,"224-25; Burkert,"Orpheus,"104. 22 Cf. Plato Crat.400b-c. E. R. Dodds (Gorgias[Oxford: Clarendon, 1959] 297-98) suggests that while the jail analogy is Orphic, the view of the body as the tomb of the soul is Pythagorean.Cf. Diels, DK ad 1 B 3.

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Returningto the Milesians,whatare the implicationsof the combination of pantheisticconceptionwith a cosmogonyof the Milesian type? Sincethe apX4andthe manifoldworldaredifferentstatesof the singledeity (the statesof homogeneityandheterogeneity),in becoming the manifoldworldthe cosmicdeity loses the purityof its natureand sinks;its truenatureis subduedbecauseof minglingwitha heterogeneous elementthat has arisenin it. But this heterogeneityis an interim statewhichthe deityeventuallyovercomes,restoringits originalnature. The analogybetweenthe story of the Milesiandeity and the Orphic story of Dionysosis striking. But even more strikingis the analogy betweenthe storyof the Milesiandeityandthatof the Orphicsoul. As the Orphicsoul when mingledwith a bodyassumesthe function of governingprincipleof the completehumanbeing,so thatpartof the Milesiancosmic deity which has retainedits originalnature in the courseof the rise of heterogeneitywithinthe apx-qassumesthe function of a divineprinciplegoverningthe entireworld.23 For this reason the storyof the Milesiandeity is, in fact, the storyof the sinkingand the ascentof the cosmicsoul.24In Orphicthoughtsinkingof the individualsoul resultsin the heterogeneousunityof the humanbeing,while its ascentis the supercessionof the humanbeingandthe restorationof the soul's originalnature. Similarly,in Milesianthoughtthe sinkingof the cosmicsoul resultsin the heterogeneousunityof the world,while its ascent is the extinctionof the world and the restorationof the cosmicsoul's originalnature(the deity'sreturnto the state of &apX). Heterogeneityarisesin the Milesiandeity, as in the Orphicsoul, more than once, but while the Orphicsoul attainsfinal purificationafter a certainnumberof cycles, the Milesiancosmic soul undergoessuch cyclesendlessly. The only explanationI can see for the Milesianconceptionof the sinkingand risingcosmicgod is that it plays,in the Milesiandoctrine, the part playedby the Dionysos myth in the Orphics. Indeed, it is naturalfor the individualsoul to be conceivedas identicalwith or in 23This relation between the unchanged,pure portion of the &apXand the rest of the manifold world is stated explicitlyin Anaximenes (Aetius 1.3.4 [13 b 2]; but see Karin Alt, "Zum Satz des Anaximenes uber die Seele: Untersuchungvon Aetios IIEplapXWv," Hermes101 [1973] 129-64), obviously follows from Aristotle's discussionof the AnaximandreanApeiron (Phys.3.4, 203b 6 [12 A 15]), and can be inferredfor Thales on the basis of Aristotle'sremarkin De anima1.5, 411a 7 (11 A 22). 24Cf. Olof Gigon, "Die Theologie der Vorsokratiker,"in H. J. Rose, et al., La Notion du Divin depuisHomerejusqu'a Platon (Entretiens sur l'Antiquit6 classique 1; Geneva: Vandoeuvres 1954) 139.

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some way akin to the cosmic soul, the divine &pX4.25Consequently, the rise of the human being, the heterogeneous unity of soul and body, should be a result of the mingling of the cosmic soul with an alien element that has arisen in it. As in the Orphicswhere the rise of the race of humanity is a part of the story of the god Dionysos, so in the Milesians the rise of humanityis a partof the story of the cosmic deity. But while in the Orphicsthe story of soul reproducesthat of a specific god, in the Milesians the story of soul reproducesthat of the cosmic god as its microcosmic analogy. This view, then, necessarily involves the eschatologicalidea found in the Orphics, namely, the soul's liberation from the heterogeneous element with which it mingled when it became human being. But the means of deliverance differ. Deliverance from bodily existence was achieved by the Orphics through the participationin and KaOap/xuol,that is, through the performance of certain reliTEE(TatY

gious rites, and through the so-called Orphic life of purity. However, though the demand to live a "pure life" could be a partof the Milesian teaching, religious rite definitely had no place in Milesian thought.26 Since the materialat our disposal does not offer any suggestions as to the means by which the Milesian thinkers may have hoped to achieve their eschatologicalgoals, in what follows I attempt to fill this gap. I also hope to verify the conclusions arrived at thus far by examining Heraclitus' doctrine, which I regard as a direct continuation and development of Milesian thought.27 The doctrine of Heraclitus,like that of the Milesians, is cosmogonical pantheism.28The divine fire undergoes endless alternation, extinguishing and rekindling (B 30). When extinguished, fire turns into the manifold world (B 31) of which it is the sole constituent, since nothing exists but fire in various degrees of purity (B 30, 31). Thus when extinguished, fire, upon mingling with a heterogeneous principle that has arisen in it, sinks, and when rekindled, reascends, purging the 25 Cf. Aristotle De anima1.2, 405a 24. Aristotle'sgeneralization,though inaccurate(as seen from his referenceto Heraclitus'soul as identicalwith Heraclitus'first principle,and at the same time as "exhalation"), reflects the kinship between soul and 'xPX4in the Presocratics.Cf. Guthrie, "Presocratic,"91-92. 26 Cf. Burkert,"Orpheus,"103-4. 27 Cf. Charles H. Kahn, The Art and Thoughtof Heraclitus(New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1979) 19-20 and passim 28 InterpretingHeraclitus' doctrine as cosmogonical, I share Kahn's hope that "the recent denial of cosmogony for Heraclituswill turn out to be a temporaryoverreaction, an exaggeratedby-productof our emancipationfrom the authorityof the Stoic and doxographicalinterpretations"(Kahn, Heraclitus,135).

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heterogeneouselementandrestoringits initialhomogeneity. Beingdivine, fire is conscious. When fire is in the state of heterogeneity,the divine reasonis concentratedin an unextinguished,pure portionof fire, namely, in the fiery componentof the world which "steersall things"(B 66). So all thathappensin the worldtakesplace withthe divinereason,the Logos(B 1; cf. B 72),29 andis in accordance bent to the divinelaw (B 114). The contentof the deity'sconsciousness is the truepictureof reality:the knowledgethatthe universeis the singledeity-fire(B 30, 31), andthe varietyof thingsis, in fact, the One excels (B 50, 102; cf. B 51, 67). This is why the god's understanding that of humanbeing (B 102; cf. B 78, 79) who graspsthe single deity as a pluralityof discretethings(B 57, 102, 79); this is why the deityis "the only wise" (B 32), its wisdombeingtrue, monisticvision of the universe(B 50). Beingakinto fire,30soul sharesits divinereason,the Logos (B 45, 115, 113).31When it is moistened,that is, when it commencesbodily life, it mingleswith an evil heterogeneouselementwhichsubduesits divine natureand estrangesit from the divinityand its reason, the Logos (B 2); it "dies" (B 77; cf. B 62).32The moistenedsoul, that is, humanbeing,sinksinto a sortof sleep, a "privateworld"of dreams(B 89; cf. B 73),33andloses awarenessof the true natureof things (B 72, 1), principally,of theiressentialunity (B 57, 51). As a result,human beingis misdirectedas to its trueend andrightconduct(B 110, 20, 29, 104, 73; cf. 121, 125a). But the moistureonly subduesthe divine natureof soul; it does not totallyrepressit. In fact even in bodilylife the soul is able to attainthe degreeof drynessneededfor it to become wise and good once more (B 118; cf. B 39 and PlutarchDef. orac. 41),

that is for it to actualizeits divine natureand restoreits communion

29 In his exhaustive study Les verbes'DIRE'en grec ancien(CollectionLinguistique51; Paris:Klincksieck,1946), Henri Fourniershows, interalia, that AryeLv, which "n'etait pas originellementun verbe declaratif,mais c'etait un mot qui traduisaitl'activite et les lois de l'esprit," having become a part of the suppletivesystem of verbadicendidid not lose "des sens rationneles etymologiques" (53, 208). Accordingly, the derivative .6yo
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with the Logos. By increasingthe soul's logos (cf. B 115) human being attains the understandingwhich enables right conduct: "Understanding34is the greatestvirtue, and wisdom is to speak truth and to act with knowledgeaccordingto the nature of things" (B 112).35 Heraclitus' high esteem for the dryness of soul (B 118; cf. B 77, 117) implies that human being's goal is to purify its soul of the evil influence of the wet bodily principle. We may go further and say that its final end should be the soul's release from bodily life; for purificationis complete only when the wet element has been totally purged (cf. B 96). But is not death the deliveranceof soul from bodily life? Were this the case, Heraclitus' insistence on the importance of "understanding"and right conduct would have been unnecessary and inexplicable. We can therefore assume that bodily death does not deliver the soul; the conclusion that Heraclitusbelieved in transmigration of the soul seems unavoidable. Indeed, we know that accordingto Heraclitus, souls can exist both in the body and alone (B 36, 12). After death they descend into Hades (B 98) and experience things of which living people are unaware (B 27), and the way in which one dies determines the soul's portion (u'oipa; B 25; cf. B 24).36 These striking

coincidences of detail between the Heracliteanand the Orphic conceptions constitute, I believe, sufficientevidence for the conclusion regarding the existence of the transmigrationdoctrine in Heraclitus.37(It may be noted that Thales' statement that "all is full of gods" or "daemons"38gains new meaning when viewed in this perspective.)

34Diels was undoubtedlyright in readingrTOpovdEv,instead of o-wopovdev, in the MSS in frgs. 116 and 112. The interpretationin the spiritof popularmoralitywhich these two fragments underwentcalled for the emendation of the "inappropriate"fpovdv to the more "natural" aOowpovdev. Frg. 113, which does not allow such a reinterpretation, retainedthe original4povelv. 35 It would be a mistaketo see in the understandingurged by Heraclitusa variety of theoreticalinquiryinto reality, for it is something quite different:it is sharingthe deity's vision of reality,the Logos; put differently,it is a type of communionwith the divine. 36 Cf. also crypticB 63. 37The similaritybetween the Heracliteanand the Orphicconceptionsof the soul was observed and discussed by Karl Reinhardt(Parmenidesund die Geschichtedergriechischen Philosophie[Bonn: Cohen, 1916; reprinted Frankfurt:Klostermann, 1959] 192-201); Delatte (Les Conceptions,6-21); and Guthrie (GreekPhilosophy,1. 476-82). See also (ed. Wilhelm EduardZeller, Die Philosophieder Griechenin ihrergeschichtlichen Entwicklung Nestle; 6th ed.; Leipzig:Reisland, 1920) 1/2. 908; Herakleitosvon Ephesos(ed. Hermann Diels; 2d ed.; Berlin:Weidmann,1909) 20; Daniel Babut, La religiondesphilosophesgrecs, de Thalesaux stoiciens(Paris:Presses Universitairesde France, 1974) 31. 38Aristotle, De anima1.5, 411a 7; Aetius 1.7.11 (11 A 22, 23).

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Thus, humanbeing'send is deliverancefrom bodilyexistence,that is, the risingup of the descendedsoul. The firststep towardthis end is communionwith the Divine throughits Logoswhichthe humanbeing sharesandwhichone revealsby "searchingoneself' (B 101, 116, 113, 45; cf. B 115). In its communionwith the deity,humanbeingacquires of the truenatureof things,thatis, realizeswhatits true understanding end is and how it can be achieved. This understanding is reachedby cultivatingthe divine principlein humanbeing, the soul's logos, and withit (B 2, 4139112, 113;cf. B 39, 50), arduously livingin accordance strugglingto suppressthe bodily principle(B 85), which requires abstentionfrom bodilyinclinations(B 85, 4).40The life lived in accordancewith the Logos will be one of righteousnessand valour (B 24, 25, 28, 29, 33, 43, 44, 49, 104;cf. B 16, 23). To recapitulate,the cosmic deity-firesinks periodically,losing its purityand producingthe world,then rises, restoringits initialpurity. The storyof the soul is partof thatof the deity. The soul resultsfrom the deity'ssinking,though,of all that exists, it is closestto the deity's originalnature. The soul's experiencereproducesthatof the deity:like the deity it sinks, minglingwith the evil heterogeneousprinciple,and like the deity it eventuallyrises, purifiedof the heterogeneity.To rise anew,soul mustatonefor becomingwet, thatis, for sinkinginto bodily life (cf. B 77). For in becomingwet, soul is in conflictwith the deity, since a moistenedsoul becomesa partof the heterogeneouselement within the deity, the element by the eliminationof which the deity returnsto its initialpurity. The soul's elevationfrom bodilyexistence consistsin restorationof communionwith the divine and struggleto conquerthe same evil principlein the microcosmthat the deity must overcomein the macrocosm(carriedout by actingin accordancewith the Logos). Thiswayof life, whichis in harmonywiththe deity,eventuallydeliversthe soul from bodilyexistence,that is, fully restoresits divinity,allowingit to join the fierydeity.41 This brief sketch of Heraclitus'doctrineas I understandit makes macroapparentthe close kinshipbetweenthe MilesianandHeraclitean cosmicoutlooks. The fact that the doctrineof soul describedaboveis 39In readingfrg. 41 I follow Kirk (Heraclitus,386): "Wisdom is one thing:to be skilled in truejudgment, how all things are steered throughall." 40 Sexual abstinencecomes to mind, cf. B 20 (cf. HippolytusRef. 7.29 ad Empedocles' frg. 115.1-2). Also referredto may be dietary restrictionsand abstentions, such as the abstentionfrom wine, cf. B 117, and therapeuticproceduresto increaseand maintainthe soul's dryness, cf. Diogenes 9.4.5 and the Suda (22 A 1, la). 41 Cf. Aetius 4.7.2 (22 A 17). See Guthrie, GreekPhilosophy,1. 480.

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simply a corollaryof the macrocosmicvisiorf2 legitimizes the generalization of the Heracliteanconception of soul for the Milesians, as long as it is carried out at the level of general ideas rather than concrete notions. It may, I believe, be safely inferred that the Milesians held the doctrine of transmigration,saw liberationfrom bodily existence and reabsorptioninto the divine as the soul's end, and believed this end to be attainablethrough communion with the divine and subsequentlyliving a pure and righteous life to actualize the divine and suppress the bodily principle. Now we can draw some conclusions about the early Presocraticand Orphicteachings. To quote Karl Joel, Orphismand the first Presocratic doctrines "bluhen gleichzeitig auf im 6. Jahrhundert,sind Kinder eines Zeitgeistes.'"43 These teachings shared a common doctrine of soul: its divine nature, sinking, transmigration,and eventual rise and reunion with the divine. They also shared a common doctrine of the path to its salvation, namely, suppressing the evil bodily principle-the life of righteousnessand abstention. Both the Orphicsand the Ionians derived their doctrines of soul from their teachings about the divinity and shareda pantheisticidea of the divine. The points of difference between the Orphicsand the lonians arose not from a differencein basic outlook, but from the fact that the shared outlook was molded in differentways. To begin with, the way in which communion with the divine is achieved is different. While the Orphics requiredparticipationin collective rites, KaOapxuot,the Ionians favored personal insight.44This difference followed from the strict Ionian pantheismwhich requiredabandonmentof rite and traditionaltheogonism. Thus three majordifferences between the Ionian thinkers and the Orphics may be noted: (a) the rigorously pantheistic doctrine, as distinct from the unsystematic pantheistic intuitions of the Orphics; (b) the consequent abandonmentof rite, as opposed to the Orphic ritualism; and (c) the transition to cosmogony, as opposed to the Orphic theogonism. To return to the starting-pointof our discussion, the definition of the problemconfrontingthe thinkersof the 6th centuryBCE, I have tried to show that the two separateforms of the problemGuthrie proposes, the 42For this reason, though certain specific points of Heraclitus'doctrine of soul could have been inspiredby the Orphics,the doctrine as a whole cannot be the result of such an influence. 43Joel, Der Ursprungder Naturphilosophie aus dem Geisteder Mystik(Jena: Diederichs, 1906) 142. Cf. Guthrie, "Presocratic,"87, 103. 44Cf. Heraclitus'criticismof rites and mysteries (B 5, 14).

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Orphic and the Milesian, and the consequently vague definition with which he accommodates both-"the problem of the relation between the One and Many,"-are unnecessary. The problem of the Milesians was exactly the same as that of, as Guthrie puts it, "the religious minds of the age ... : 'What is the relation of each individual man to the divine, to which we feel akin, and how can we best realize and actualize the potential unity which underlies the two?"' Though formally differing in their vision of the divine and our relation to it, the Orphics and the Milesians experienced the world preciselyin the same way, and this experience was essentially mystical. They envisaged the universe as permeatedwith the divine and strived to join it. They sought direct and immediate association with the deity in sharing the deity's experience-the Orphics, by imitating this experience in mysteries revealed by Orpheus, the lonians, by imitatingit in their everyday life, that is, by conscious participationin the mysteries of the cosmic life revealed as such by their personalinsight. They hoped to eventually be united with the deity for eternity as a rewardfor living a life of devotion and self-discipline. One general point may be made in conclusion. There is a fundamental problem confronting historians of Greek philosophy:I refer to the well-known problem of the rise of Presocraticthought. I doubt that I can improve on Michael Stokes' summary of the current state of the problem: The Peripatetics,and thereforethe other Greeks, tell us of no soundreasonwhy it was that Thalesallegedly"foundedthis kind of philosophy."Nor can it be saidthatmorerecentwriterssupply any moredefinitereasonwhy the greatstep of postulatinga single constituentfor the materialuniverseshouldhavebeen takenin the early sixth century BC . . . A common line of approachis to stress the close kinship between material monism and the scientific outlook ... but it entirely fails ... to supply a reason why we should put the birth of the material monism in the sixth century ratherthan the fifth. It fails to show why in particularit should be the sixth century which gave birth to this extreme form of simplification. In this context the suggestion that "there seems to be a deep-rooted tendency in the human mind to seek ... something that persists through change" should be received cautiously; the suggestion is that this deep-rootedtendency in the human mind sprang suddenly above the surface in the sixth century BC. .. and no explanation is forthcoming either for its long dormancyor for this precipitateefflorescence. We are sometimes, in effect, asked to credit the Greeks with a mind more scientific than their predecessors or neighbors, so that on its first contact with Eastern myth it

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HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW transformedthe myth into a scientific hypothesis ... If this belief ever had anything to commend it, it has nothing now, when anthropologyhas been allowed to shed light on Greek irrationalities; and the Milesians are in any case not the first recordedGreeks to have demonstrablepoints of contact with Easternmyths ... It is not necessary to be a Marxist to appreciate the importance of economic and social factors in the history of ideas ... [but this theory] would not even begin to suggest a reason why that abolition [of personal and arbitrarilyinterferinggods as a result of the rise of the Milesian merchantclass] should be accompaniedby the postulationof a single materialfor everything . . . There simply has been suggested in print no good reason for so strange a beginning to Greek philosophy.45

If my interpretationis correct, Greek philosophy originated as a trend within the religious movement of the 6th century BCE,a century of great religious ferment and intense moral searching. This trend, which I would define as speculative pantheism, began to lose its religious pantheistic color as a result of changes in the mental climate in the first half of the 5th century. It was gradually transformed into speculation the motivation of which was not primarilyreligious and which properlycan be called philosophical. In other words, the teachings of the Milesians and Heraclitus-and, one can safely add, of Pythagorasand Xenophanes, were not philosophicalin their intended significance, and the differences between Orphic and early Presocratic thought acquire significanceonly when viewed from the standpoint of the ultimate results of the historicaldevelopment of the latter. In the 6th century Orphiclore and Presocraticspeculationwere kindred teachings, differences between which resulted from different shaping of current religious and moral ideas rather than from any real divergence in the basic outlook. Two distinguished scholars, M. P. Nilsson and W. K. C. Guthrie, have, in the pages of this journal, shown how Orphic lore and Presocratic speculationwere deeply rooted in the popularoutlook of the age. Thus Guthrie called attention to the fact that in bare but significantoutline, a common picture of the nature of the Universe, of living creatures, and of divinity was shared by a surprisingnumber of Greek philosophicaland religious thinkers of the 6th and early 5th centuriesBC . . . This world-picturewas not 45Michael C. Stokes, One and Many in PresocraticPhilosophy(Washington:Center for HellenicStudies, 1971) 38-39.

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the creation of any one of them, but rather seems to have been assumed by all at the outset, as is also suggested by certain indications in Greek literaturethat it was shared by the unphilosophical multitude.46

I fully accept Guthrie's conclusion, although my vision of the common world-picture,and particularly,my interpretationof the intended significanceof the early Presocraticdoctrines, differ from his own. For this reason I cannot accept Guthrie's explanationthat "all shared common backgroundwhich was neither rational nor mystical exclusively." The backgroundwas mystical, while rationalismwas the particularway in which the Ionians shaped the popularmystical outlook. As Nilsson put it, Mystic, ascetic, and catharticreligious ideas were widespreadin the archaicage and appealedstrongly to the people . . . Orphismis but one of the many currents of mystic and catharticideas ... [and] can only be rightly understood if taken in connection with the whole of the stream of religious ideas in the archaicage.47

The same applies to early Presocraticspeculation:it is simply another of these currents of mystic and catharticideas, and its rise and intended significancecan be properlyunderstoodonly againstthis historicalbackground.48

46 Guthrie, "Presocratic," 87, 103. 47 Nilsson, "EarlyOrphism,"184-85. 481 would like to thank Prof. J. Barnes of Balliol College, Oxford, for some useful

comments.